


Memories

by Servena



Series: Anita Everleigh [2]
Category: Underworld (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alzheimer's Disease, Family, Gen, Grandmother-Granddaughter-Relationship, Reunions, Uncle-Niece Relationship, Vampires, nursing home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-11-09 07:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20849441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: On a good day, when she entered the little room that her grandmother shared with two other women, her grandmother’s face lit up. Today was not a good day.





	Memories

On a good day, when she entered the little room that her grandmother shared with two other women, her grandmother’s face lit up. When she asked her who she thought she was, she answered: “You’re Katherine, my Katherine”, like even asking was ridiculous. She wasn’t always sure how exactly they were related (“I’m you’re granddaughter, grandma”), but she knew where she fit in her heart, and that was enough.

Today was not a good day.

On days like these, she just sat in her chair and looked out of the window into the garden, barely acknowledging anyone that came through the door. On these days, she didn’t ask who grandma thought she was. She didn’t answer most of the time anyway, and when she did, her words were a testament to her confused mind: “Are you the new cleaning lady? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” She couldn’t say what hurt more.

So she didn’t ask. Instead she said: “I’ve brought you some flowers, grandma”, as she arranged them in a vase on the night stand. “I picked them through a fence on the way, but you can’t tell anyone.”

No reaction.

She sighed and bit down on her bottom lip to keep herself from crying. Tears wouldn’t do anyone any good, they’d only distress her. She knew that these bad days would only grow more common, with the good few and far between, until what had been her grandmother would have disappeared completely, leaving only an empty shell behind. But until then, she had to be there for her, no matter how much it might hurt her.

The sound of the door made her turn around. There was a man standing in the doorway. She’d slowly come accustomed to the relatives of her grandmother’s roommates, but she was sure she’d never seen this one before. She would have remembered him otherwise, he was tall, with dark hair and intense eyes, and he wore a black coat that fell all the way down to his boots.

“You might want to check the common room”, she said.

But the man didn’t move. Instead he said: “I’m looking for Anita Everleigh?”

Her hand stopped in the air with a flower between her fingers. “You know my grandmother?” There had been countless family reunions in the last decades, and while she had skipped quite a few in her teenage years, she was sure he’d never been to one. And yet, now that she looked at him closer, he somehow seemed familiar. Her grandma’s hair had long since become grey and her eyes had dulled, but she’d seen old pictures of her, and there was a certain similarity here, as well as in in the rise of his cheekbones, the shape of his mouth.

“Are you family?”

One corner of his mouth lifted into an almost-smile. “Something like that.”

He didn’t ask her who she was. Maybe he knew. He didn’t ask here whether he could enter either, his eyes just caught on the small shape of her grandmother huddled in her chair beneath the blanket and he seemed to step forward almost involuntarily.

“Today is not a good day. She probably won’t know who you are”, she warned him. Hell, I don’t even know who you are, she thought to herself.

She wasn’t sure if he even heard her. He stepped into the room and went down on one knee in front of her chair as not to tower over her. Carefully he took one of her hands between his own. “Hey, Anita”, he said softly.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then her grandmother’s face slowly began to change, as if someone was peeling back layers over layers to reveal her underneath. To her own shock, her grandmother’s eyes began to fill with tears, thick drops of water that started to run over her wrinkled cheeks. She reached out with a shaking hand, brushing fingertips over his face and through his hair. When she spoke, her voice was wavering and small as that of a child. “Nathaniel?”

“That’s right”, he said calmly.

“You came back.”

His eyes were clear, but full of sadness. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“We have to tell father. He was so worried about you.”

He cast his eyes down. “I’m afraid it’s a little late for that.”

She reached out with her thin arms and he leaned forward so she could wrap them around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulders like a little girl. “Uncle Nathaniel.”

The flower slipped out of her fingers and hit the floor. She saw it in front of her inner eye as if it’d been yesterday, the wall of pictures in grandma’s old house, dozens of photographs of children and grandchildren, and in between, a faded black and white, taken when her grandmother had still been a child, in her grandparents’ garden. She remembered how her grandmother had taken it down to explain to her who was who: “This was my father, and my mother, and these were my father’s parents, my grandparents. This was my younger sister Matilda and my brother Edward. And this, this was my uncle Nathaniel, father’s brother. He disappeared a few years later and never came back.”

Her grandmother had sighed, with that wistful look on her face only old people get. “I missed him a lot. He’d buy me books when he found out I loved to read, and he showed me the things he had brought back from his travels. Sometimes I felt like he was the only one who understood me.”

_He disappeared a few years later and never came back._

She bent down to pick up the flower. Her hand was shaking. But this was impossible, completely ridiculous. This man looked no older than 30 (no older than in the photograph, a voice in her head whispered), it couldn’t be him.

“I’m gonna get some more water”, she said. Then she left the room with quick steps.

He found her half an hour later in the common room. A part of her had hoped he’d just disappear and she could forget about him like her grandmother would surely do. But no, he had enough manners to say goodbye.

By now she felt nothing short of embarrassed at her rushed escape. Surely this uncle must have had children and thus grandchildren that she didn’t know about. It wasn’t like she was aware of every branch of their family tree.

She really should ask him about that. But somehow she couldn’t quite find the words. Instead she heard herself saying: “You must look a lot like him.”

He simply said: “I do.”

For a moment they just looked at each other. Then she held out her hand for him to shake. “Thank you for visiting her.”

His touch was firm and cool and inexplicably shook her to her core.

It took her almost two hours to dig out the photograph from all the boxes that occupied her attic. She sat there on her knees for a while, covered in dust and spider webs, and looked at it.

The man she’d met just this morning was looking back at her.

“There’s a logical explanation”, she told herself.

But she couldn’t find any.


End file.
